FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT CANNING - PAGE 4

Vince Canning Sr. traveled the country selling shoes for about 20 years before settling in Delray Beach, where he turned what was once a five-and-dime and later Warren's Shoes into a multi-generational family business that hasn't slowed in its 50 years of operation. This month, Vince Canning Shoes celebrates its golden anniversary at its East Atlantic location. The business expanded in the 1960s and 1970s, when Vince Canning Jr. opened stores in Pompano Beach, Boca Raton and Boynton Beach.

DELRAY BEACH -- It`s too late for spring cleaning, but perfect timing to root through your closets for old shoes. For another week, they are worth up to $10 to Vince Canning. For the past 15 years, Canning has been inviting customers to bring their old shoes to his store at 335 E. Atlantic Ave., so he can deliver them to migrant workers and other needy groups. The store, Vince Canning shoes, offers discounts for the donations in the springtime, as a way to draw customers after the end of the tourist season.

There's a sprawling oak tree in Craig Canning's front yard. It's one of the things he likes best about his home in Lauderdale Isles, a community annexed to Fort Lauderdale on Sept. 15 of last year. The area consists of 700 homes hidden just south of Davie Boulevard, east of State Road 7. "Trees and the environment are important issues here since so many people live on the water," Canning said. "We want to preserve the waterways." That's why Canning, 52, became president of the Lauderdale Isles Homeowners Association -- to maintain the area's green canopy and ensure the integrity of the North New River Canal that forms the southern boundary of the community.

Almost two weeks have passed since Coral Springs resident Paula Canning heard, along with many others in her community, that the nearby Chabad Lubavitch temple had been attacked by anti-Semitic vandals. "I was horrified by what happened," said Canning of the four swastikas that were spray-painted on the temple's back wall over the July Fourth weekend. "To see that kind of hate in a community where so many Jewish people live is disturbing to me." So like hundreds of others from the surrounding community, Canning went to Chabad of Coral Springs on Sunday to help paint a mural where the symbols of hate were so recently scrawled.

Americans make approximately 88 million pumpkin pies using canned pumpkin at Thanksgiving. -- Illinois is the No. 1 pumpkin-producing state, and farmers there send most of the state's 6,400-acre-a-year harvest to canning plnats. -- Farmers in California, the nation's No. 2 pumpkin-producing state, harvested 49,000 tons of pumpkin in 4,800 acres, according to the latest figures available. The average pumpkin weighs about 10 pounds, and that means a total of nearly 10 million pumpkins. Using the same calculations - 12 to 20 tons per acre - American farmers produce about 100 million pumpkins.

Men and women alike are invited to slip on a pair of stilettos and sprint, strut or sashay 75 meters for the second annual "Vince Canning Stiletto Race," benefiting the Achievement Centers for Children & Families. Beginning at 6 p.m. Nov. 21, stiletto-wearing racers will line Southeast Fourth Avenue in downtown Delray Beach and race toward the Atlantic Avenue finish line. The race was created by LaRonda Denkler, Vince Canning Jr.'s niece and now owner of Vince Canning Shoes, to celebrate the store's 60 t h year on Atlantic Avenue.

Delray Beach resident Vince Canning began Delray Beach's annual community clothing and food drive, dubbed Open Your Heart ... Open Your Closet ... Open Your Cupboard, as a one-man enterprise some 30 years ago. Canning collected shoes of all sizes from his shoe store customers in exchange for a few bucks off their next pair. "I used to head it up and would donate all the shoes I collected from May into summer to the Caridad Center," Canning said. Located in Boynton Beach, the Caridad Center sponsors health, education and outreach programs.

The Amish of southwestern Michigan live quiet lives in rural seclusion, yet they are rebels. They are fond of desserts and jams. They do not brush their teeth every day, and most do not floss. Yet, their children have half as many cavities as other U.S. children and they suffer less gum disease. How do they get away with this? Dr. Robert A. Bagramian, a dentistry professor at the University of Michigan, has studied the population and has some ideas about the condition of their teeth, which he called "pretty good."

Roger Wayne Myers had a passion for football and the beach. "He loved sports," his brother, George Myers, said on Wednesday. "He lived and breathed the [Miami) Dolphins, and he liked walking on the beach and swimming. He would always go there on his free time." On Wednesday morning, the last day of his vacation from his job at Gold Coast Screen Services in Boca Raton, Myers went to the beach in the 900 block of South Ocean Boulevard, as he usually does, and went for a swim. An early morning stroller later found his body in the ocean.